The role of quantum coherence in promoting the e ciency of the initial stages of photosynthesis is an open and intriguing question. Lee, Cheng, and Fleming, Science 316, 1462 (2007) The understanding and design of functional biomaterials is one of today's grand challenge areas that has sparked an intense exchange between biology, materials sciences, electronics, and various other disciplines. Many new - velopments are underway in organic photovoltaics, molecular electronics, and biomimetic research involving, e. g., arti cal light-harvesting systems inspired by photosynthesis, along with a...

The laser as a radiation source with temporal and spatial coherence has made a tremendous impact in the different fields of science. As a result, new and exciting research has been developing allover the world. Laser spectro scopy shares a large fraction of this research, and in the last decade nu merous books and monographs have been published on this subject. Most of these books and monographs contain the work done in the physics community. Very few books represent the advances made in laser chemistry, a field that is flourishing and whose future is indeed very exciting. It was felt that a...

The first international conference devoted to Picosecond Phenomena was held 1ay 24-26,1978 in Hilton Head, South Carolina. After more than a decade of active research, this conference brought together scientists from widely varying disciplines who shared a common interest in studying 'ultrafast processes. It was organized as a Topical Meeting of the Optical Society of America and attracted 187 registered participants. The conference reviewed current progress in experimental and theoreti cal understanding of phenomena that occur on a picosecond timescale. A recent upsurge of interest has...

Surface science has experienced an impressive growth in the last two decades. The attention has focussed mainly on single-crystal surfaces with, on the atomic scale, relatively simple and well-defined structures (for example, clean surfaces and such surfaces with limited amounts of additional foreign atoms and molecules). One of the most fundamental types of information needed about solid surfaces concerns the relative atomic positions. The geometrical arrangement of surface atoms influences most physical and chemical properties of surfaces, the list of which is long and includes a number of...

This conference on both the physics and chemistry of laser-induced processes in molecules was organized by the Quantum Electronics Divisional Board of the European Physical Society whose membership is given on p.367. The confer- ence aim, to mix physicists and chemists interested in this exciting field both from Europe and further afield, was well fulfilled by the attendance of around 250 participants and the submission of about 100 papers, which dre presented here. Numerous people at both the Physics Department, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and at the Projektgruppe fUr Laserforschung,...

Lasers and chemical change is the study of radiation and molecules in dis equilibrium. The distinguishing feature of such systems is the extreme de parture from thermal equilibrium: the radiation is usually confined to a narrow frequency range, is well coll imated, and is far brighter than black body radiation; the chemical composition and also the distribution of mole cules over their different energy states are often markedly displaced from that expected at equilibrium. Such systems can be used as a source of laser radiation and, reversedly, lasers can rapidly and selectively displace mole...

For rather a long time numerical results in chemical kinetics could only be obtained for very simple chemical reactions, most of which were of minor practi ca 1 importance. The avail abil ity of fast computers has provi ded new opportunities for developments in chemical kinetics. Chemical systems of practical interest are usually very complicated. They consi st of a great number of different el ementary chemi cal reacti ons, mostly with rate constants differi ng by many orders of magni tude, frequently with surface reacti on steps and often wi th transport processes. The deri vati on of a...

This volume contains papers presented at the Eleventh International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena held at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, from July 12 to 17, 1998. The biannual Ultrafast Phenomena Conferences provide a forum for dis- cussion of the latest advances in ultrafast optics and their applications in science and engineering. The Garmisch conference brought together a multidisciplinary group of 440 participants from 27 countries, including 127 students. The enthu- siasm of this large number of Participants, the high quality of the papers they presented and the magnificent...

This volume consists of edited papers presented at the International Symposion Gas Phase Chemical Reaction Systems: Experiments and Models 100 Years After Max Bodenslein, held at the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg (IWH) in Heidelberg during July 25-28, 1995. The intention of this symposion was to bring together leading researchers from the fields of reaction dynamics, kinetics, catalysis and reactive flow model ling to discuss and review the advances in the understanding of chemical kinetics about 100 years after Max Bodenstein's pioneering work on the "hydrogen iodine...

The theory of atom-molecule collisions is one of the basic fields in chemi cal physics. Its most challenging part - the dynamics of chemical reactions - is as yet unresolved, but is developing very quickly. It is here a great help to have an analysis of those parts of collision theory which are already complete, a good example being the theory of atomic collisions in process es specific to chemical physics. It has long been observed that many notions of this theory can also be applied successfully to reactive and unreactive molecular collisions. More over, atomic collisions often represent a...